FT. LAUDERDALE, FL-After three years of contraction, roughly 700office-using jobs are forecast to be created in Broward County in2010, a 0.2% gain, according to Marcus & Millichap’s Office Research Market Update for the second quarter. Butnewly-hired workers are not expected to stimulate demand for newspace, because 2.7 million square feet of empty space hasaccumulated, which will be filled first, according to thereport.

In recent months, there has been some increased interest byinvestors in the purchase of office buildings, according to Marcus& Millichap, because they foresee a little more demand forspace and are heartened by the lack of new construction in thecounty. The only reason there hasn’t been a lot of sales activityis that few properties have been for sale in the last 12 months.The report did not list any specific sales of office buildings.

Investors, by and large, seek out the class A properties eventhough their performance has declined as the recession hascontinued. Cap rates, although variable, depending on location andasset, have averaged from the high 8% to the low 9% range forsolid, class B properties, according to the report. Therehave been few class A sales of late, but their cap rates areprobably 100 basis points lower than for the class B propertieswhich have sold, according to Marcus & Millichap.